Profit-less space program launches in one week

The Copenhagen Suborbitals are now within one week of their first launch. We looked in on the non-profit and non-secretive space program back in March but we had no idea the group had a frickin’ submarine at their disposal. What you see above is the rocket on its floating launch platform. The submarine will haul it out into the Baltic Sea for launch. There’s not much room in the craft for an astronaut but it will be a horrifying an exhilarating flight. According to the spacecraft page the human payload will be in a half-sitting, half-standing position looking up through an acrylic nose dome. This first launch will not be manned, but once they get through the tests this will be one crazy ride.

These guys are making amazing progress!! I can’t wait for the stats after this test flight. Also wondering how the half-sitting half-standing is going to feel on the ride – hopefully they’ll make it to a manned flight soon!

As I recall, the project began when they made a rocketpowered boat for a childrens tv-program :)
The subs are prior to that. The entire program is open source, and adhearing to KISS, hence the use of Nautilus as it’s at hand.
BTW Von Bengtsson is a former human habitat engineer at NASA, so not quite an amateur :)

I’m not so sure about that seating position. In the event things go wrong your eyes balls are going to be locked onto the impact are, until impact. I’d rather see work on launch vehicles capable to place micro/pico communications satellites into orbit.

It’s not really NASA’s space :P
But even if it does get up there, it’s going to come back down. It’s a SUB-orbital flight, not an orbital one. I’m pretty sure they’re put a bit more thought into this than “Let’s make a rocket and fire it into space and see what happens.”

@Zool:
My first guess is that the controls are placebos: Each switch or button activates instrumentation that tells the pilot everything’s nominal. If anything, one of them probably plays soothing music and records the pilot’s last words.

@krustikov Their ‘boosters’ page (http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/boosters.php) clearly states 40kN for the vehicle urrently up for launch in a week, and at an acceleration of less than 3g, I estimate that means the rocket is 1400-1500kg AFTER a good portion of the fuel is gone. the 6kN peak engine was from one of their smaller HATV’s.

You should see the amount of garbage that is orbiting the earth already.

From NASA Orbital Debris site FAQ:

What is the principal source of large orbital debris?
Satellite explosions and collisions. Prior to 2007, the principal source of debris was old upper launch vehicle stages left in orbit with stored energy sources, e.g. , residual propellants and high pressure fluids. The intentional destruction of the Fengyun-1C weather satellite by China in 2007 and the accidental collision of American and Russian communications satellites in 2009 greatly increased the number of large debris in orbit.